{Travelog} Part 2: Melbourne in Summer!

After departing the Lakes Entrance (which you can read from Part 1 of our road trip from Sydney), our road trip continued another 3.5 hours until we reached Melbourne. It was quite a bit of a scary adventure as Google Map led us to the off-road via the bushes. It was alright at first, but the deeper into the bushes we traveled, the more charred trees we saw and some were even emitting smokes! Eventually our adventure came to a halt when a pile of fallen trees block the driveway. So we turned back to the Princes Highway and this has set us back 1hour late. The scale and impact of the bush fire is really not joking matter.

• Melbourne CBD

Well. It’s mt birthday today! We picked up our aunt whom we last visited 8 years ago when E was slightly under 2yo, and we departed to Southbank for lunch. We yam char at the Red Emperor restraint, a riverside chinese restaurant serving some authentic 点心 ‘dim sum’. Their 虾饺 ‘har gao’ was really nice and the service was really prompt and friendly.

We then explored Melbourne CBD on foot - the famous Melbourne Train station, Flinster street, and the Swanson street for some shopping at the Myer, David Jones stores before taking a break at Carson street for tea time. New York cheesecake with a glass of Róse, hmm..

We had a warmth home cook meal at our aunt‘s cozy apartment overseeing the park. The duo helped making pavlova and the beef stagnoff pasta for our dinner.

When we returned to our friend’s home, i was surprised by a birthday cake. Spending birthday with loved ones is really what that matters to me.

Thanks everyone. Happy birthday to me.

• Hog’s Breath Steakhouse

Big guy’s friends brought us to the popular steakhouse for some juicy hickory sauce steak while I had the baron chili sauce and scallops on the side. They offered kids meals such as pasta and 150gm steak with curly fries.

After an awesome meal, we began our journey to meet the penguins, how exciting!

• Penguins Parade @ Philip Island

The Penguins Parade at the Philip Island Nature Park was such a great educational & fun trip. The duo learnt so much about the little fairy penguins on this island and danger of plastics & balloons to the ocean life.

There were fooling around while waiting for the penguins arrival time. It’s estimated to be 8:50pm in summer time where the papa & mama penguins will bring home food to their little chicks - regurgitated fish or squids.

What a wonderful experience to watch up close when those the penguins waddled home to their burrows... it’s amazing how they find their way home under such pitch dark condition.

We arrived late at around 4pm (it’s a 2hours drive from Melbourne city) and after visiting the Panny’s Chocolate Factory we ran out of time to visit the Koala Conservation Center and the Heritage Village which are included in our Klook tickets (We have prebooked our tickets via Klook and preselected our arrival date) Well, passed on to our friends in Melbourne hopefully it benefits the next visitors since the tickets valid for 6 months once claimed.

• Puffing Billy Train ride

This attraction is located at Dandenong, just some 30min away from Melbourne city. We have prebooked our tickets via Klook and preselected our arrival date & time.

🚂 Puffing Billy 🚂 ride was such an interesting outing.. we have cyclist, men on foot and family on truck trying to race with the train all the way from Belgrave to Lakeside - mind you, it’s an 60min ride on the locomotive that travels between 10-20miles/hour 

We took a short walk around the Emerald lake at the Lakeside station, apparently that’s a favorite family picnic site. We just had pies, chips and coffees that we bought from the lakeside cafe; and a cockatoo decided to join us.

Ripe Cafe @ Sassafras 

Sassafras is a small town located just about 10’min away from Belgrave, it has many petite cafes and boutique shops to entice you. We patronage’s Ripe Cafe, which is located right next to the Tealover shop selling many interesting handmade teapots.  

The lunch was satisfying and enjoyable, I enjoyed my toasted avocado sandwich (after too many beef) and big guy had an Aussie beef burger which was served with some roasted baby potatoes.

The Mrs Maple tearoom next door was really popular with the tourists.

Then, we return to town to attend to the Christmas Carols in the City Life church. Angelica voices and meaningful sharing by the pastor..

• Sunday Farmer’s Market 

• Christmas Decoration Hunting

After sundown at around 9pm, we drove around town to hunt for Christmas demo hunting in the neighborhoods

• Dandenong Ranges

Today is the Cherry picking day! Chapters U-Pick Cherries and Berries farm is located at the Dandenong range, about 30min drive from the Melbourne town. It charges an entrance fee of AUD$12/adult and AUD$6/child (and additional AUD$12 for every 1kg of takeaway), and offers variety of choices at the farm, from merchant cherries, Stella cherries, raspberries, bayson berries, blackberries etc... Basically it’s an berries overload day!

• Dinner?

We were planning to have dinner cum shopping at Chadstone, the biggest mall in the Southern Hemisphere which operates until 10pm on Tuesday (and apparently 24h during Boxing Day). Unfortunately, C was having fever and headache so I stayed back to take care of her. Luckily we always bring along some medicines when traveling, eg tea tree oil (for small cuts), paracetamol / children paracetamol and also vitamins and probiotic drinks, she had a good rest and woke up feeling much better. At least I made good use of that time to do some packing.

Day 5  

On the last day of our stay in Melbourne, we had to decide whether to visit Melbourne Zoo, St Kilda or Brighton Beach (we suppose to cover the beaches on Sunday as there’s usually a Sunday market, but we spent a long time at the relatives gathering so well..) at the end I leave it to the duo to decide and they’ve chosen Melbourne Zoo.

So Melbourne zoo it is!

• Melbourne Zoo

We arrived at the zoo early - by 9am and I got the tickets through Klook while queuing - despite no ongoing sales now, the price is still cheaper compare to buying over counter (I paid RM28x for 2 adults and 2 child)

The zoo is very well maintained and child friendly. We visited the all the Aussie animals that we had not covered in the previous visits - platypus, wallaby, wombat, koraburo bird etc. the duo had a really educational visit thanks to the helpful rangers and information display available everywhere throughout the zoo.

The next day, we went to the Philips Island for little penguine watching, but that will b another story for another day…. ;)

{Travelog} Sydney, Sydney!

We arrived Sydney on a bright sunny morning in the early December, there is slight scent of burn in the air, supposed it has to do with the bush fire that is happening at the Western Australia. 

Initially we planned to take the train at T8 station to our apartment down at Liverpool street (nearby to the Hyde Park); I discovered that Ready2Go is a cheaper option for 4 of us with 4 luggages - cab would charge extras for luggage, train would cost $19/adult and $15/child, while this cost $18/adult and $9/child and send us right to our doorstep, well, good deal I would say! 😊

It’s a small charter bus for 12 pax. Comfortable and clean.

Day 1 Sydney City Center

• Hyde Park

• Strand Arcade

• Sydney Opera House

• the Rock & Sydney Harbour Bridge

Right after settling down at our apartment, we headed to our first destination of the day.

• Hyde Park

This lush green park is really the green lungs of the city. Surrounded with many old trees and shrugs and blooming plants, Hyde Park was filled with locals and tourists during the morning of our visit.

• The Strand Arcade

Since we were not in a rush (beauty of not joining a tour group!), we took our own sweet time to explore the arcade and had a cup of hot drink before moving to the Sydney Harbour House.

The best view has to be from the top floor that gives a birdview of the arcade.

• Sydney Opera House tour 

I redeemed my online ticket at the ticketing counter within minutes and joined the English speaking tour immediately (you may read more about this online ticket at the bottom of this post)

The land that the opera house is built is called Bennelong Point, Jórn Ulzon won the architect competition amongst 220 designers who entered the competition. The construction was entirely funded by public lottery and took 16 years between 1958-1973 to complete. Peter Hall took over after Ulzon was forced out of the project by political pressure.

Today, Sydney Opera House hosts some 2000 shows a year and we are fortunate enough to had a visit to 3 theaters - Playground, Philharmonic hall and Joan Sutherland Hall.

This world heritage architecture won Jórn Utzon the Pritzker Prize in 2003. The roofs are made of self-cleaning tiles imported all the way from Switzerland and a crane was brought in from France to install the prefabricated concrete wall pieces that came in different shell-like shapes. No wonder it’s crowned as an engineering marvel.

• Darlington Harbor

We had a really enjoyable lunch at the Opera Cafe right outside the Opera House. We had seafood & larger at the cafe overseeing the Sydney Harbor Bridge, also nicknamed "The Coathanger" because of its arch-based design. Filled our stomach before the 1 hour walk across the bridge.

Learnt of a new profession today, ‘seagull patrol’, to chase off the annoying seagulls that kept preying over our food. The table next to us really had their pizza snatched off by a seagull! So watch out for the birds the next time you are here

• Harbour Bridge

We took a walk to the Rocks, it’s a happening place where the lots of stores and restaurants and pubs are located. It took 16 years for the service men to make the cut which forms the rock today.

We took a walk up the Agryle Steps towards the Harbour Bridge, and there we completed our 45min walk from one end of the bridge to the other end of it. The strong wind making it rather chilly, lucky we came prepared with our jackets.

We arrived after 5pm so the lookout pylons already closed, but anyway, we do not fancy another 200 steps of walk. LOL.

Lovely view of the Darling Harbour and Sydney Opera House from above the bridge.

Day 2 Sydney City Center

• Sydney Fish Market

One can really go crazy with the amount of fresh seafood offered here, from lobsters to king prawns to matrons to cockles to giant Atlantic salmon, trouts and barramundi; you name it and they probably have it here!

We took the bus 389 from Liverpool St using the Opal card and it costs AUD$2.24/adult and half price for the kids. The fish market is just about 5min from the station.

There are more than 1 seafood traders here, Peter’s and Nicholas are amongst the biggest and there are butchers too if you do not fancy seafood. Charting with the local and he recommended us Peter’s for the freshness, so Peter’s it is (plus, the lady serving us was really friendly & responded to our questions patiently)

We had done our study before the trip, so no hesitation when ordering. We had lobster tails, king crab legs, fish and chips and cheese mussels; just paid another AUD$15 for cooking and we had the seafood cooked & served fresh (we had them cook in Butter Garlic style and it was absolutely delicious!). E treated us a large bottle of fresh orange juice with the AUD$10 pocket money he has - thanks to his loving aunt.

We picked a seat right next to the port where we can watch the sea birds (including pelicans!) and fishes and all the boats. Lovely. Those seagulls are really scavengers, keep coming close trying to snatch food, so really got to keep an eye on them.

Next stop, Sea Life Museum!

• Sydney Sea Life Museum

We came up close with the Gentoo penguins, second largest penguin species after the Imperior penguins. These tiny ones are so cute and adorable! The aquarium also is one of the only two that have dugang- the so called real life mermaid.

• Madame Tussaud

What better place to fool around with the celebrities other than Madame Tussaud.

LOL. Each of us took turn to photograph with the celebrities or heroes of our choice, and had some good laughters.

Used the Sydney Explorer pass for fast access. Cool.

• Barangaroo

This sea front boulevard is full of pubs and cafes and even at 3:30pm most of them were full of patrons. Does the Aussie works? Sorry but I couldn’t help to feel that way >.<

We stopped by Bourke Street Cafe for their famous beef & mushroom pie, it was really good! The pork roll was just ok-ok to me, perhaps im not quite a sausage fan.

The server was really cheerful and full of life, love the service.

• St Mary Cathedral

As the haze was pretty bad, we decided to cancel the initial  plan to take the cruise and move indoor instead. We did some window shopping at Westfield and Davi Jones before moving to St Mary Cathedral at the Hyde Park.

It’s beautiful, each colored glass window panels tells a story of Jesus.

• Dinner @ Stanley Street 

Finally, we walked back to Stanley Street to look for Reggie Pub, one of the recommended Italian restaurants on this happening street with pubs that open till late. To our pleasant surprise, the food was delicious and the kids meals portions were really generous and tasty too. the price? Very very reasonable, only cost us under AUD$70 for 4 pax.

Finally, we walked further down to Oxford street to treat ourselves to the nice gelato at Rivareno Gelato. $5.50 for a single scoop or $9.90 for 3 scopes. Perfect dessert to end the night.. 

Day 3

• New South Wales Art Gallery

This is one of the free activites recommended on our guidebook so decided to come by and enjoy some art exhibition. Apart from the aboriginal, Australian and European art pieces on display, they are currently  having Japanese supernatural art exhibitions. We downloaded the Artivive app and saw those monsters on wall came alive. Awesome!

• St Andrew’s Cathedral 

We stopped by this Eternity Cafe at the City Hall Square for lunch and I had this beautiful dessert instead of sandwich lol. Cost AUD$22 for this but well, it did bring up good mood so why not?!

• Royal Botanical Garden & Mrs Macquarie’s Chair 

After filling up the tummies, we proceeded to the Sydney Royal Botanical garden and began our flora exploration. It is a big garden with over thousand of species of local plants. 

We took lots of photos here, closed up of the plants and insects, landscapes of the beautiful manicured garden and of course, lots of portraits with ourselves in it.

Our little explorer  

Being in the park makes me really happy.

• Luna Park

We decided to use the last choice of our Sydney Explorer pass and spent the night at the Luna Park which is at the edge of Darling Harbour. We had a total of 4 rides (entrance is free) and decided to go for the Hungry Mouse roller coaster ride, Ranger swing boat / bumper car (the boys and ya split up), Spider ride and lastly the Ferris wheel which we get a magnificent view of the Harbour bridge and Sydney Opera House. The park was no compare to the Disneyland or DisneySea, where the riders are mostly the old fashion type, but overall it’s a joyous ones as you have many youngsters and teens running around in hysterical mode.

Finally, when we got back to our hotel Nesuto Woolloomooloo, it’s already after 9pm and most eateries are closed or closing except the pubs; lucky there is Harry HotDog de Wheels to the rescue. We had some warm hotdogs and pies before getting to bed. Woolloomooloo is really quite a nice spot to stay with the beautiful wharf view and the many eateries it has.

For AUD$300+ a night, it’s totally worth it.

Day 4 Day trip to Blue Mountain

We booked a day trip through our hotel and it cost AUD$99/adult and AUD$60/child which is way cheaper than what we found on Klook and other brochures. We didn’t book the trip earlier due to worry of bush fire, luckily the weather has cleared up and we could go up the mountain.

The driver, Les is professional and knows much about the place and it’s history. We had our first pullover at the Pulpit Rock lookout point.

• Leura old town

We had our lunch at the Loaves & Dishes, a corner restaurant located in a little town called Leura serving local Australian & Indian food (yeah, we spotted samosa). We decided to try the Kangaroo burger with charcoal bread for AUD$22.95; well, the Blue Mountain Burger (AUD$17.95) which is typical Australian beef burger tasted way better - juicier and tenderer than the kangaroo patty which I find rather dry. The kids meal was good and satisfying, E got a cheese burger (almost same size as mine) while C got a penne pasta at AUD$10 a set.

• Blue Mountains Scenic World

We hopped onto the bus and continued to the next spot - the Scenic World for the cable car rides. There were a total of 3 rides with the last one being the steepest and quite a fun ride - you can choose the steepness of the seat from 35°-65°, pretty cool. While none of us find it too scary, I overheard 2 of the ladies complaining it’s scary like hell. Honestly I would think it’s not too overwhelming.

We got some wild honey from the souvenir store. AUD$45 for 3 large jars, quite a good deal.

• Boars Head Lookout

Stunning view at the lookout, the sub was a bit way too strong up at the mountain thou, could hardly keep our eyes opened.

Can you see the boar’s head?


• Olympic Park Ferry Cruise Ride
Finally, Les the driver dropped us to Olympic Park to catch a ferry ride back to Circular Quay. The Opal card provided is preloaded with AUD$20/adult and $AUD10/ child per card, that’s a good deal. 

The ride took about an hour and near the end don’t forget to go to the front of the cruise for a nice Harbour view.

• Haymarket 

We then made our way to Haymarket to meet up with my friend for some Korean food @ the Sparrow Mill locates on Goulburn St, they served up some really delicious fried chicken, both original and spicy versions. 

After dinner, we took a stroll along the Chinatown and tried this popular gelato outlet that served over 20+ flavours of gelato, from the old-fashion chocomint to the fancy Apple pie flavor. Enough to make the kiddos happy & parents can continue chatting until we parted our ways.

It’s really nice to catch up with friends during trip, they also gave a bit more insights on local lifestyle.

Day 5 Sydney Beach

• Bondi Beach

Our last day at Sydney and i insisted to visit Bondi beach as this is a must-visit on my list. So while big guy went to collect our rental car, I brought the duo with me to Bondi Beach. We took a train ride from King Cross station and switched to bus 333 that lead us direct to Bondi Beach.

It’s no wonder the beach is so popular amongst the surfer & holiday goers alike. The sands are soft and powdery, the water icy cool and the wave relentlessly washing onto the shore making it an ideal spot for wind surfing.

The duo played at the beach before we headed to the iconic Iceberg Pool on the far end of the beach. 

After a quick bite at McDonalds at the Bondi beach front (C wanted the Pokémon toy that comes free with the happy meal!) we finally left Sydney on our rented car.

With that, It marks the end of our Sydney visit and the road trip on wheels from #Sydney2Melbourne begin!

Our Accommodations

• Hyde Park Apartment

I found this nice comfy townhouse on Liverpool street on hotel.com, it is within walking distance to the Hyde Park and Museum Station. Few streets away is the popular Stanley Street that offers many pubs and cafes. Reggio restaurant is amongst one of the popular choices and we really enjoyed the pasta & friendly service there.

• Nesuto Woolloomooloo Hotel

This hotel locates right next to the wharf provides family room that is really nifty. It has 2 queen size beds and come equipped with full kitchenette and washing machine + dryer. I got a really good deal By making direct reservation through their website (with breakfast for just $1 each!), it’s within 8min walking distance from the nearest King Cross station and quite a lot of eateries nearby. The front desk manager was really friendly and made our stay way more pleasant.

Visit them here: https://www.nesuto.com/

Using the Sydney Explorer Pass 

Before the trip, I have prepurchased the Sydney Explorer Pass  with 4 choices on Klook during the 11.11 sales, it costs me RM374/adult and RM241/child (before discount) and after comparing the actual entrance prices for these places, I find that it is indeed a better deal and is rather convenient to use.

We used it for the Sydney SEA Life Aquarium, Madame Tussaud, Opera House and Luna Park (3 rides), but you could opt for other destinations such as Hop On Hop Off bus, River cruise, Harbour jetliner, Blue Mountain hop on hop off buss, Taroonga Zoo etc. depending on which you prefer. 

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